The Elusive $1,500 Rental

Finding an apartment in New York that does not drain your bank account can feel like a nearly impossible task.

Competition is fierce. And for what? Cramped spaces that deliver little more than a grinding commute to work. But knowing where to look — and when to act — can mean the difference between crummy or cozy quarters. Apartments for less than $1,500 a month do exist, as long as you’re willing to take on a roommate or two or explore neighborhoods that might be less than convenient to your work.

Price, of course, dictates most searches. Pay too much and a tight budget can spiral into an unmanageable one. More than half of all New Yorkers are considered “cost burdened,” meaning they spend more than a third of their income on rent.

As the city’s population grows, the number of apartments available shrinks, particularly the cheaper ones. The median income for New Yorkers in 2015 was $56,350 a year, which puts median housing costs at $1,409 a month for rent and utilities, according to the New York University Furman Center. Yet in May, the median rent for a Manhattan apartment was $3,475 a month, according to a Douglas Elliman report. To pay that much without being burdened, you’d have to earn $139,000 a year.

“Rents have gone up, there’s no doubt about that,” said Vicki Been, the faculty director at the Furman Center and a former commissioner of the city’s Department of Housing Preservation and Development. “At the same time, people’s incomes have stayed flat. That’s making housing less affordable.”

And what about recent college graduates moving to New York in search of jobs and housing? While someone starting out in finance is looking at a median starting salary of $70,000 a year, jobs in arts and entertainment, for example, offer a much smaller starting median wage of $29,700 a year, according to data provided by the job site Glassdoor.com. Do the math, and many New Yorkers should be paying considerably less than $1,000 a month in rent.

To find those apartments, renters “are going to have to look long and hard,” Ms. Been said. “People are having to make trade-offs. The cheaper the apartment, the further away from transit it is.”

Know Where to Look

The search for apartments fitting a smaller budget often leads to pockets of the city that are rapidly changing, but often lack conveniences like express trains, shops and restaurants. Although rents have been stagnating over the last two years, they are still near historic highs. And neighborhoods that were considered reasonably priced options just a few years ago no longer are.

“We used to do studios in East Harlem all the time,” said Shawn Hindes, a founder of Teacher Space, a brokerage firm that helps new teachers find apartments. “But that’s not really feasible anymore on a teacher’s salary.” The same goes for many Brooklyn neighborhoods. “Five years ago, someone saying ‘I want a place in Crown Heights’ got the pick of the litter,” he said. But that is no longer the case.

In 2016, only about 14 percent of the one-bedroom apartments listed in Crown Heights on StreetEasy were asking less than $1,500-a-month rent; and in Washington Heights, around 10 percent of one-bedrooms asked less than $1,500 a month, according to data provided by StreetEasy.

But head over to a Brooklyn neighborhood like Northeast Flatbush, an area south of Crown Heights, and about 63 percent of the one-bedrooms were listed for less than $1,500 a month last year; while in Norwood in the northwest Bronx, almost 94 percent of them were, according to StreetEasy.

Mr. Hindes of Teacher Space said young teachers who once might have looked in East Harlem are now heading to neighborhoods like Morris Heights in the West Bronx. In Brooklyn, neighborhoods like Flatbush, Prospect-Lefferts Gardens and Kensington are getting more traffic, according to Harley Courts, the chief executive of Nooklyn, a brokerage firm that also helps renters find roommates. “Half of our inventory has shifted south in the last 18 months,” deeper into Brooklyn, Mr. Courts said.

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Tess Bonn on the steps of her apartment building in Inwood.CreditEmon Hassan for The New York Times

Last month, Tess Bonn, 27, a television writer and producer, moved back to New York City from Washington for work. She had always lived in Brooklyn, but areas she once found affordable were suddenly out of reach. She found a listing on Craigslist for an apartment in Inwood in Upper Manhattan. “When I went to see that apartment, it was the first time I’d ever been that far uptown,” she said.

That one didn’t work out, but she was smitten by the neighborhood. “It’s a beautiful area,” she said. “It kind of reminds me of Brooklyn, but less overrun with hipsters.”

Erin Whitney, a saleswoman for Bohemia Realty Group, which specializes in Upper Manhattan, suggested other options. Among them was a one-bedroom on Vermilyea Avenue listed for $1,550 a month. “It was a really good place, and a really good price,” Ms. Bonn said. She moved in at the end of May.

Price isn’t the only deciding factor. When Katrina Shakarian and Jessica Franco needed to move out of their $1,650-a-month two-bedroom apartment in Woodside, Queens, by May 31, the roommates hoped to discover a new neighborhood. “We thought, ‘This is an opportunity to do something different,’” said Ms. Shakarian, 31, who works for the city and grew up in Queens. Ms. Franco, 31, who grew up in the South Bronx, works in health care.

But after looking at apartments in Inwood, the South Bronx and Jackson Heights, Queens, they ended up signing a lease on a two-bedroom just a few blocks away from their old apartment.

The other options they considered were cheaper, like a $1,700-a-month two-bedroom on Tinton Avenue in the South Bronx with no broker’s fee. But it was on the ground floor, with bars on the windows. “You feel like you’re in a cage,” Ms. Shakarian said. An apartment in Inwood was listed for $1,750 with no broker’s fee. But it was tiny. A larger Inwood apartment, also for $1,750 a month, was a fifth-floor walk-up.

Ultimately, the roommates settled on a large two-bedroom apartment in Woodside for $1,850 a month, which they moved into in early June. They had to pay a broker’s fee of one month’s rent. Although the apartment is more expensive than the others, and farther from the subway than their old place, it is newly renovated and the building has a pool and an elevator. “I think we’ve gotten more space for the money,” Ms. Shakarian said. “It was more bang for my buck.”

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Katrina Shakarian, left, and Jessica Franco in the lobby of their new apartment building in Woodside.CreditEmon Hassan for The New York Times

Double (or Triple) Up

One is the loneliest number — and also the most expensive. A renter who is willing to move in with one, two or even three roommates will invariably trade privacy for cash and space.

“You will get more space for your money by having three or four roommates,” said Mr. Courts of Nooklyn, who once lived with seven skateboarders in a Brooklyn loft with only one bathroom. (“It was a party house, obviously,” he said.)

Not only might a three- or four-bedroom apartment end up costing less money for a group of roommates, it might be easier to find than a smaller apartment. Just consider Bedford-Stuyvesant. Last year, less than 6 percent of the listings for one-bedrooms on StreetEasy were asking under $1,500 a month in that neighborhood. But during that same period, 23 percent of two-bedrooms listed in the neighborhood asked less than $2,000 a month; about 75 percent of three bedrooms asked less than $3,000 a month; and 58 percent of four bedrooms asked less than $3,500 a month.

With more options available, the chances of finding a nicer-quality space go up. “You think when you move to New York your first place is going to have leaky faucets and broken everything,” said Jake Corcoran, who spent last summer looking for two-bedrooms apartments to share with a roommate, Andrew Perez.

Mr. Corcoran, 23, an actor, dancer and choreographer, did most of the apartment hunting while Mr. Perez, 23, was still living in Boston.

The two friends did not want to spend more than $1,000 each on rent. They focused on Washington Heights, an area that offered a reasonable commute to the theater district and had a good supply of larger apartments. All of the apartments they saw were in their price range and in decent condition. “I was more surprised with the renovations maybe than the overall amount of space,” said Mr. Perez, who is now a server at NoMad Bar in the NoMad Hotel. “I wasn’t expecting to move into an apartment with updated appliances.”

They ultimately settled on a two-bedroom in Washington Heights for $1,975 a month. “We got lucky in having new tiles, new appliances,” said Mr. Corcoran.

The apartment is on the first floor so that Mr. Corcoran would not disturb any downstairs neighbors when he choreographs tap dances.

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Andrew Perez, left, and Jake Corcoran, in their apartment in Washington Heights.CreditEmon Hassan for The New York Times

Quick Decisions

Although the rental market has slowed considerably over the last few years, it is still tight for renters looking for apartments at the bottom of the market. Such apartments, when they become available, rent quickly. Seasoned renters know to show up at a viewing with a checkbook in hand.

“You have to troll the websites on a daily basis,” said Robert Nelson, the president of Nelson Management Group, which owns and operates properties in the Bronx, Manhattan and Brooklyn with rent-stabilized and affordable apartments. Apartments in Mr. Nelson’s portfolio “don’t last long.”

“If you see it, you take it. You can’t hesitate at all,” said Ms. Whitney of Bohemia Realty Group. Landlords often “just rent to the first person who walks in the door.”

Bring paperwork, checkbooks and all your roommates along with you on the hunt, said Brian Henninger, a salesman for Citi Habitats, who also suggested keeping financial information on a thumb drive as well as in print.

Organizing your paperwork can have another added benefit. It can alert you ahead of time to potential problems. When Kate Blemler, a graduate student and nanny, started apartment hunting last year, she had no idea that her tax returns would complicate her search.

She had been paying around $900 a month for a bedroom that was large enough for only a twin-size bed in an apartment on the Upper West Side that she shared with two roommates. She wanted space and privacy. She filled out an apartment application in Inwood only to get rejected by the landlord because her tax returns did not reflect her total income.

“That was eye-opening,” said Ms. Blemler, 29. She scrambled to get a letter from her employer verifying her income and asked her parents to guarantee her lease. Even so, it complicated her search, and limited her options. She got approved for a $1,650-a-month one-bedroom in a walk-up building in Inwood a few weeks later. “I jumped on it,” she said.

If You Can, Take Your Time

Most renters have to move within a matter of weeks. But the luxury of time can help, particularly for those who do not know what they want, like Hollis Heath, who works in youth development and still lives at home in West Harlem with her parents. Around January, she decided it was time to move, grudgingly.

Ms. Heath began her hunt hoping to live alone in Central Harlem for less than $1,500 a month. What she saw was small. “I’m a tall woman,” said Ms. Heath, 29. “If I spread my arms, I’d touch the entire apartment.”

Friends suggested she spread her wings a little wider and try the Bronx, where some of them already lived. “At this point, the Bronx is still not what people look forward to,” said Chyann Sapp, a childhood friend of Ms. Heath’s and a saleswoman for Citi Habitats. “You’re not going to come here for all of the sights and sounds, you will come here for the cheap rent.”

Ms. Heath spent nearly six months warming to the idea of lower rent in exchange for a longer commute. “I’m trying to look at it like an adventure,” she said. “That’s what’s keeping me hopeful about not being able to catch a cab from Trader Joe’s anymore.”

On June 1, Ms. Heath submitted an application for a $1,500-a-month one-bedroom in Mott Haven in the South Bronx, which was approved a few days later. With new appliances, ample light and access to an express train, it hit all the “must haves” on her list. And the landlord will pay the broker fee. “It has everything I wanted,” she said. She will move in before the end of the month.